Monday, April 20, 2020

Adam: Wasted

Tuesday March 24th 2020 I read the headline: “Ohio schools looking at massive funding cuts due to coronavirus pandemic response” from abc6. “If we are forced to cut state funding by 20%, that’s going to be a massive cut to school districts,” said Stephen Dyer with Innovation Ohio.

Cut state funding by 20% and the first program in the budget mentioned was education. As a public school teacher in the state of Ohio I thought it was interesting the government would want to cut an already underfunded program. It’s always been interesting to me how a state could be stingy when it comes to training and educating tomorrow’s workforce.

According to InteractiveBudget.ohio.gov Ohio received $72 billion dollars in the 2019 budget.
$33 billion from tax revenue,
$35 billion from non-tax revenue, and 
$4 billion from ‘other.’
20% of $72 billion would be $14.4 billion.
The total budget for the Ohio Department of Education (Primary and Secondary Education) in 2019 was $11.4 billion (the department used $11.1 billion).

Then on April 3rd WOSU reported: DeWine Asking Judges To Consider Release Of 38 Inmates. The article stated: There are a total of 48,991 people in Ohio's prisons as of Friday April 3rd. According to Vera.org the prison cost per inmate for Ohio in 2015 was $26,509. If my math is correct that’s $1.3 billion annually. Let’s set aside the stupidly callous number of only 38 inmates during this pandemic and stay focused on the rant at hand. Moving on, according to ocjs.ohio.gov in 2010 Drug offenses made up 26% of Ohio commitments to the criminal justice system. According to KirwanInstitute.osu.eduour prisons are over 130% of capacity. In the past decade alone, we have seen a 12% increase in Ohio’s prison population, despite a 30 year low violent crime rate. Between 1980 and 2016, the state prison population nearly quadrupled.

The Ohio government says we will need to cut state funding by 20%. And so far this rant has focused on those cuts and tightening the budget belt. But there is another side to this coin or rather another coin entirely. As the saying goes: While other economic systems argue how to cut up the pie, capitalism bakes another pie.

Ah capitalism, seeing as how my state is run almost entirely by red blooded Republican politicians of course they are all fans of small government and the free market.

September 1, 2017 Ohio state troopers seize $333,000 worth of marijuana from turnpike traffic stop
November 8th 2018 Ohio State Highway Patrol seize $1.3 million worth of marijuana during traffic stop
November 21, 2018 Ohio troopers seize $1.2 million worth of marijuana during traffic stop
January 31, 2019 Troopers seize $75,000 worth of marijuana on Ohio Turnpike
February 27, 2019 Troopers seize $84,000 worth of marijuana after traffic stop in Cuyahoga County
May 31, 2019 State troopers seize more than $30,000 worth of marijuana in two traffic stops
March 4, 2020 Ohio police seize 905 pounds of marijuana

These are just a few news articles I found on the first page of a google search from every area of the state of Ohio. Now I want you to imagine how many drug traffickers do not get stopped by the police in Ohio each day.

Let’s talk about baking that other pie (emphasis on baking)

Colorado Marijuana Taxes, Licenses, and Fee Revenue:
Source: colorado.gov
2014 $67,594,323
2015 $130,411,173
2016 $193,604,810
2017 $247,368,473
2018 $266,529,637
2019 $302,458,426
2020 $50,070,970 (January and February)
Totaling over $1.2B in state revenue 

“Washington state collected a total of $395.5 million in legal marijuana income and license fees in fiscal year 2019, all but $5.2 million of it from the state’s marijuana excise, or sales tax. The marijuana revenues were $172 million more than that of liquor, and the marijuana tax income to the state for fiscal 2019 of $395.5 million grew by more than $28 million from the prior fiscal year.” Source: tre.wa.gov

Colorado and Washington state have a COMBINED population of 13.4 million. 
Ohio has 11.7 million.

And in case you’re thinking weed sales wouldn’t happen in the conservative midwest, here are two months of data from Michigan and one month from Illinois: 
According to mlive.com, “Michigan recreational marijuana sales near $18 million in two months. The state has generated $2,938,192 in tax revenue, including $1,769,995 in excise taxes and $1,168,197 in sales taxes. The excise tax on recreational marijuana is 10%. The sales tax is 6%.” The article goes on to quote the Chicago Tribune, “Illinois, a state that began selling recreational marijuana January 1, 2020 generated nearly $40 million in sales during the first month.

We know the recreational pot retail industry could boost our state’s economy and thus its tax revenue. But could this state’s economy benefit from this agricultural plant in other ways?

Farmflavor.com says “Ohio has more than 75,000 farms and 14 million acres of farmland. The agriculture industry – the largest industry in the state – contributes $105 billion annually to Ohio’s economy.

Agriculture is the state's largest industry and lucky for Ohio weed is an agricultural plant. But do our rural farm county’s need an economic boost by introducing a new crop?

Athens is ranked as the 8th poorest community in the US. “The overall poverty rate for Athens County is Number 1 in Ohio at 30.6%, according to the new census estimates for 2018, based on a five-year survey. For child poverty - those age 17 and under growing up in the area - Athens County ranks fourth in Ohio at 31.5%. Each of the top six counties statewide for child poverty are in Southeast Ohio or nearby, with rates in Guernsey, Vinton, Gallia, Athens, Scioto and Meigs ranging from 30.7% to the high of 33.8% in Guernsey.” Source: Cleveland.com

Creating and providing a new economic industry in rural Ohio, the highest poverty rates of the state, could provide financial relief to many communities. 

When I think about the problems in the state of Ohio and I think about:
Opioid epidemic
Overpopulated prisons
Underfunded schools
Court systems logjamed with cases
Poverty in agricultural rural counties
Law enforcement wasting resources to seize marijuana
Potential job markets for retail, distribution, farming, marketing, small businesses 
Then I think about the state budget being cut and tomorrow’s Ohio workforce education being the first thing cut. I begin to wonder if these pro-business, pro-farmer, pro-free market, pro-small government Republicans actually believe in ANY of the policies they claim.

We talk about funding saved  from prisons decriminalizing nonviolent drug offenses
We talk about funding saved from police decriminalizing nonviolent drug offenses
We talk about funding saved from court systems decriminalizing nonviolent drug offenses
We talk about funding saved from stimulating poor agricultural counties with new industry
We talk about funding from potential Marijuana Taxes, Licenses, and Fee Revenue annually

As millions of Ohioians toke up this 420 I want you to take a minute to think about all of the tax revenue that could have gone to our potentially great state. I want you to think of the families that could be reunited when released from prisons, I want you to think about the impoverished agricultural communities across rural Ohio, and when you consider all of that as you take that first drag think about how all of the state’s efforts have utterly failed to keep that substance out of your hands.
Wasted.

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